Sunday, July 22, 2012

Carl Zimmer Doubles Down on Chromosome Two Lies and Misdemeanors

For several years now evolutionists have presented the human chromosome number two as an excellent example of how science supports and confirms evolution and this week science writer Carl Zimmer continued the celebration in his Discover magazine blog. What Zimmer and the evolutionists fail to comprehend, however, is that their argument from the human chromosome number two is an excellent example of the religion and rationalism at the heart of evolutionary thought.

You can read the details of how evolutionists have presented the human chromosome number two evidence here. Simply put, the idea is that after the human and chimpanzee lineages split from their common ancestor about six million years ago, the human lineage experienced a chromosome fusion event where two chromosomes fused together to become one, thus reducing the count from 24 to 23. Since our chromosomes come in pairs, the total number reduced from 48 to 46.

That story is reasonable enough, but in the hands of evolutionists it quickly becomes a sordid tale of lies and misdemeanors. There’s something here for everyone as evolutionists cycle through several of their typical fallacies and hypocrisies including shifting the burden of proof, naïve falsificationism, affirming the consequent, theological naturalism, abuse of science and circular reasoning.

Shifting the burden of proof

Ever since Darwin called for skeptics to prove his speculative ideas wrong this strategy of shifting the burden of proof has been a favorite of evolutionists. Darwin wrote:

If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down. But I can find out no such case.

But this was hardly a concession. Darwin may sound generous here, allowing that his theory would “absolutely break down,” but his requirement for such a failure is no less than impossible. For no one can show that an organ “could not possibly” have been formed in such a way. So in short order Darwin reduced what seemed to be a dilemma for his theory into a logical truism. Evolution was protected from criticism and all that was needed to explain complexity was a clever thought experiment. Darwin so lowered the requirements that anyone with a pen and a vivid imagination can now claim to have solved the problem of complexity.

Zimmer used this same strategy this week when he demanded that skeptics of the chromosome two argument show why the evolutionary fusion hypothesis is not possible:

Why is it so hard to answer one question? What is the evidence claimed by members of the Discovery Institute that human chromosome could [not] have evolved through fusion six million years ago? Why do I have to engage in a drawn-out debate about an entire book to get an answer to this one question? [Note: Zimmer’s point is nonsensical because he accidentally omitted the word “not”]

Of course no such claim was made. It is the evolutionists strategy to shift the burden of proof so that evolution enjoys the position of being true by default. Everything evolved from nothing unless you can prove otherwise to the evolutionist’s satisfaction.

Naïve falsificationism

Evolutionists argue that the chromosome two fusion event is important because evolution successfully passes a test of falsification. Zimmer approvingly cites a Ken Miller talk (click above) where Miller makes this argument and concludes:

But there’s something that’s really interesting, and has the potential, if it were true, to contradict evolutionary common ancestry. [0.47]

Evolution has survived so many false expectations with creative conjecture that claims that “this time it’s different” have long since lost credibility. When predictions turn out to be false we are told they were soft and not binding. Evolutionists reassure us that it is all a part of science following the data as the theory is contorted yet again. But when predictions turn out to be true we are told they were hard and binding. An evolutionist once told me that evolution certainly would be falsified by the finding of functionally unconstrained yet conserved DNA sequences. That was before the finding of functionally unconstrained yet conserved DNA sequences.

Beyond this problem of after-the-fact evaluation of predictions, there is the problem that even the success of a hard prediction, by itself, carries only limited information. For instance, science is full of theories that are considered to be false yet enjoy any number of confirmed predictions.

Affirming the consequent

Another problem with successful predictions is that evolutionists view them as not only providing a hard falsification test, but as also providing a sort of confirmation of evolution. At its worst this amounts to the logical fallacy of affirming the consequent. At its best it is a failure to reckon with the meaning of a successful prediction. For instance, Miller triumphantly concludes:

It confirms the prediction of evolution. [3:46]

So what? Science is, again, full of theories considered to be false which make all kinds of successful predictions. This example is particularly awkward since the chromosomal fusion event would have occurred exclusive of any evolutionary speciation event. In other words, perhaps evolution needs it, but it doesn’t need evolution.

Theological naturalism

Theological arguments for evolution’s strictly naturalistic account are crucial. They are evolution’s raison d'être and no less so in this chromosome two argument. As pointed out above, as a falsification test and as a successful prediction, the case of the chromosome two fusion is, from a scientific perspective, of limited importance. The key, as always, is the religious interpretation.

Evolutionists believe that this chromosomal arrangement would never have been designed or created. The key word here is “believe.” It is a religious argument and it is here that evolution has all its strength. Again, Miller makes it clear:

How would intelligent design explain this? Only one way. By shrugging and saying “That’s the way the designer made it.” No reason, no rhyme. Presumably there’s a designer who designed human chromosome number two to make it look “as if” it was formed by the fusion from a primate ancestor. I’m a Roman Catholic, I’m a theist in the broadest sense I would say I believe in a designer, but you know what, I don’t believe in a deceptive one. I don’t believe in one who would do this to try to fool us. And therefore I think this is authentic and it tells us something about our ancestry. [3:48]

There you have it. If one doesn’t believe the chromosomal arrangement is possible under design or creation then, yes, evolution is left as the “None of the above” answer. It must be true, one way or another. As usual evolutionists are quite clear about the metaphysics that motivates and underwrites their theory. This is the power of evolutionary thought.

Abuse of science

The idea that the universe came from nothing and that the biological world arose spontaneously is, of course, not scientifically motivated and not scientifically expected. It is another case of religion driving bad science. The chromosome two case is not nearly the abuse of science that much of evolutionary theory is, but it does have its problems. The site of the fusion event on human chromosome number two does not provide an obvious picture of a past fusion event. There certainly are suggestions of such an event, but it is far from obvious as evolutionists claim.

Furthermore such an event, if it could survive, would have to take over the pre human population. In other words, the existing 48 chromosome population would have to die off. This is certainly not impossible, but there is no obvious reason why that would occur.

There are problems with the evidence. Perhaps the fusion event occurred, but the evidence carries nowhere near the certainty that evolutionists insist it does. It is not so much that the evidence is conclusive against the event but that it is not conclusive for the event as evolutionists claim. Their interpretation is driven by their theory, and this leads us to the final fallacy.

Circular reasoning

If you believe evolution is true to begin with, then you would conclude that the human chromosome number two is the result of a fusion of two ancestral chromosomes. There would be no question about it for several reasons. It would reconcile the different chromosome counts in humans and chimpanzees. And there are a great many similarities between the human chromosome number two and the two corresponding chimp chromosomes.

But if evolution is not taken as an a priori, then these evidences are far less compelling. From this theory-neutral perspective, what is important is not reconciling chromosome counts or chimp-human chromosome similarities (after all, those are found throughout the respective genomes). What is important is the more direct evidence of a fusion event, such as in the region where the two chromosomes would fuse, and other tell-tale signs in the chromosome two.

Here the evidence is mixed. Certainly it is far less compelling than evolutionists ever tell their audiences. This need not be controversial. But it is.

Why? Because evolutionists are essentially incapable of such a dispassionate analysis where presuppositions and evidences are clearly laid out. Their analysis is deeply influenced by their dogmatic assertion that evolution is a fact. For evolutionists it is a metaphysical certainty and they simply are unable to evaluate the evidence from a theory-neutral perspective.

All of this results in a stubborn type of circular reasoning where evolution is presupposed, evidence is interpreted accordingly, and the results then service evolutionary apologetics as though they were obtained from objective science.

In this case, from the evolutionary perspective the chromosomal fusion event is beyond any reasonable doubt. And that event is then used as powerful evidence for evolution. It is all circular.

This is a subtle yet influential motif in evolutionary thought that often underlies discussions and debates while escaping detection.

The human chromosome number two is a concise illustration of evolutionary thought. There is, of course, much more to evolutionary thought than can be packed into this tight vignette, but it does capture the subtleties and intricacies that inevitably weave their way through any defense of evolution.

218 comments:

One problem with this post, Cornelius, is that it is based on an entirely mistaken premise, which, luckily, you have stated unambiguously, here:

CH: Everything evolved from nothing unless you can prove otherwise to the evolutionist’s satisfaction.

Cornelius, the theory of evolution is NOT, repeat NOT, the theory that "everything evolved from nothing".

That would be tautological, for a start.

It is the name we give for a complex interlinked body of theory, supported by independent (not "circular") lines of evidence, suggesting that all living things that we know of are the descendents of a common ancestral population, and that the changes over time that we infer were a result of heritable variance in reproductive success in the prevailing environment.

It is not a theory of OOL, although there are theories of OOL as well.

It is not the theory that there is no God.

It is not the theory that evolutionary processes were not foreseen and intended by a creator God.

As ever, you equivocate with the word "evolution", using it to infer that arguments are circular when they are not.

It is dishonest. You consistently refuse to address any questions put to you regarding what you mean by "evolution" in any given context in which you use it, yet continue to falsely accuse "evolutionists" of equivocation with word.

The fused chromosome is beautiful confirmation of common ancestry of chimps and humans, supported by many other lines of evidence.

The fused chromosome is beautiful confirmation of common ancestry of chimps and humans.

Not it is not. If it were, then it could just as easily be a confirmation of one or more designers reusing an existing ape chromosome and performing a modification for reasons that may or may not be clear at this juncture. Why lie?

it could just as easily be a confirmation of one or more designers reusing an existing ape chromosome and performing a modification for reasons that may or may not be clear at this juncture.

"just as easily"? The point is that your theory "it happened by magic" accommodates all data, thus predicting nothing. No, all conceivable data sets are easy if you can invoke unlimited numbers of miracles.

You have no clue what the scientific method is. A theory has to make testable predictions. If humans evolved from apes in 6 million years, their chromosomal structure has to be the same up to minor rearrangements. If you observe humans have 23 pairs of chromosomes and apes have 24 pairs of chromosomes, then you must predict something got fused.

Your "multiple designers" theory CANNOT make any predictions as specific as the predictions of evolution. There's no need for the genes on ape chromosomes 2a and 2b to have synteny with the parts of human chromosome 2. Your "multiple designers" theory could arrange genes in any order on chromosomes of any structure. You hypothesis accommodates all data, thus predicting nothing.

Wow. Isn't amazing that the fellow with the superstitious theory (life created itself) is accusing me of having a magic theory?

My designer theory does make a specific falsifiable prediction but I refuse to throw my pearls to gutless swines. LOL.

Paul Feyerabend was right when he wrote in Against Method, "the most stupid procedures and the most laughable result in their domain are surrounded with an aura of excellence. It is time to cut them down to size and to give them a lower position in society."

"The fused chromosome is beautiful confirmation of common ancestry of chimps and humans,"

Why? If there was not common ancestor also we could have experienced a fusion cromosome.

The evolutionist reasoning is this:

a) Similarities prove common ancestorb) We found similarities between chimps and humansthe prove of common ancestor.c) We found differences. Did evolutionist call them eviddence against common ancestror? No They pass to strategy d.d) Found a plauible explanation for the difference. Put a name to the explanation. Fusion event, vestigial organ, rapid mutation points, convergnt evolution, HGT.Now start to reasoning on the base evolution is true, and the evidence against common descentbecome magically prove of common descent.

No, but the distribution of similaritis as a tree strongly suggest it.

b) We found similarities between chimps and humansthe prove of common ancestor.

No, it is the distribution of similarities over all species that suggest it, and also suggest that humans are primates, and more closely related to the great apes than to other primates.

c) We found differences. Did evolutionist call them eviddence against common ancestror?

Again, it is the distribution of similarities (and therefore also of differences) that strongly indicates a tree. Clearly there are differences between chimps and humans.

No They pass to strategy d.d) Found a plauible explanation for the difference. Put a name to the explanation. Fusion event, vestigial organ, rapid mutation points, convergnt evolution, HGT.Now start to reasoning on the base evolution is true, and the evidence against common descentbecome magically prove of common descent.

"The point, Blas, is that the two fused chromosomes are those found unfused in chimps."

I know logic is hard for darwinists. I´ll try to explain my point.

If we found the same number of cromosomes in chimps and humans that is evidence for CD.If we found a different number of cromosomes we look for an explanation. We found a plausible one.How can this became evidence FOR evolution?That is only an explanation that fits ToE but not evidence FOR evolution.

If we found the same number of cromosomes in chimps and humans that is evidence for CD.

Well,not really, but go on.

If we found a different number of cromosomes we look for an explanation. We found a plausible one.

Given all the evidence for common descent (the tree-distribution of morphological and genetic features) we have an oddity - why do humans have a smaller set of chromosomes?

How can this became evidence FOR evolution?That is only an explanation that fits ToE but not evidence FOR evolution.

No, you still aren't getting it. Let me try again:

We find that the tree we get from DNA sequence data for primates maps extremely well on to the sequence data we get from morphological data - two completely independent datasets give the same answer - a tree.

That tree gives us a phylogeny for primates. But there is an oddity - humans have only 46 chromosomes (23 pairs) whereas other apes, including chimps, have 48. That seems like quite a big difference - how can we account for it?

Well, it's possible that two ancestral chromosomes fused. in which case, we'd expect to find

a) evidence of a fused chromosome in humansb) that fused chromosome should, specifically, look like two of the chromosomes of our closest relatives stuck together.

And, lo and behold, it does!

A lovely example of successful prediction made by a hypothesis derived from evolutionary theory.

I think the key thing you are missing is the phylogenetic argument - it's not that "chimps are similar so we have a common ancestor" - it's the tree that we get from plotting the many similarities and differences that strongly suggest common ancestry, and when we get a tree from one data set, that is also given by another, and makes a prediction about a third, we can be very confident we are on the right track!

"A lovely example of successful prediction made by a hypothesis derived from evolutionary theory."

Do not make me laugh, ToE predicts a fusion?If tomorrow you find a cousin species with different number of chromosomes and no signs of fusion ToE would predict that RM+ NS did it.

"I think the key thing you are missing is the phylogenetic argument "

I said I agree nested hierarchy of traits is on of the evidence my assent to ToE is only temporary. What I´m saying that the chromosome fusion story o not add evidence is just an explanation why a not nested similar trait could be explained by CD. But at the end is nothing more than another nested trait.

"and when we get a tree from one data set, that is also given by another, and makes a prediction about a third, we can be very confident we are on the right track!"

And when the tree do not fit we are confident we are in the wrong track?

"A lovely example of successful prediction made by a hypothesis derived from evolutionary theory."

Do not make me laugh, ToE predicts a fusion?

You don't seem to be understanding me. What predicted a fusion the hypothesis posited to account for one fewer chromosome pair in humans than in the rest of the apes, and, specifically, the prediction was for a fusion between two chromosomes that would closely match the chromosomes found at positions 2 and 3 in the chimp.

This prediction arose from the theory, based on good data, that humans and great apes have a common ancestor, and that chimps are our closest relative.

Obviously the "ToE" as a broad theory doesn't predict that human beings will have two fused chromosomes. We could well have evolved with the same number as chimps do.

But given the observation of our place within the ape clade, based on data, and given the observation that we have one fewer chromosome pair, if the theory that we are related to chimps is correct, we should see one of our chromosomes consist of a fusion between two chimp chromosomes.

Do you understand what I'm saying?

I said I agree nested hierarchy of traits is on of the evidence my assent to ToE is only temporary. What I´m saying that the chromosome fusion story o not add evidence is just an explanation why a not nested similar trait could be explained by CD. But at the end is nothing more than another nested trait.

True indeed. But rather a cool one, as it post-dated both the morphological and genetic phylogeny that led to its predicted (IIRC).

"and when we get a tree from one data set, that is also given by another, and makes a prediction about a third, we can be very confident we are on the right track!"

And when the tree do not fit we are confident we are in the wrong track?

Apologies, the last paragraph above is from Blas - I pasted it, and did not italicise it or comment on it:

If tomorrow you find a cousin species with different number of chromosomes and no signs of fusion ToE would predict that RM+ NS did it.

Well, clearly chromosomes can be duplicated or deleted so that would be another possible explanation. But that could be easily tested. However, normally chromosomal duplication or deletion results in a less fit or non-viable organism, so it would be surprising, I guess, at least in animal species. Such duplications are fairly common in plants, I understand, but I am no botanist.

The point is, Blas, that when we find something surprising, we can look to evolutionary theory to provide a testable hypothesis. Which is then tested. If you really did find a species with a whole extra chromosome, with no apparent precursor (e.g. a chromosome that had been duplicated) or a whole missing chromosome (missing lots of genes that are normally highly conserved), that would certainly be very odd, and a challenge for current evolutionary theory to explain.

"Well, clearly chromosomes can be duplicated or deleted so that would be another possible explanation."

You see I´m right, and if you find instead a fusion a duplicated chromosome or a deleted one you would be saying: " here we have a cool prediction that add evidence to the ToE"

"However, normally chromosomal duplication or deletion results in a less fit or non-viable organism, so it would be surprising, I guess, at least in animal species."

On the contrary fusion of chromosomes in animal species is a very common event.

"The point is, Blas, that when we find something surprising, we can look to evolutionary theory to provide a testable hypothesis."

Let me refrase. When we find somethign outside the nested hierarchy of traits we look for an explanation to save ToE( i.e. someway to put the not nested trait in the nested hierarchy). Then we check the plausibility of the explanation

And that is correct, the problem is that after that darwinist do not say ToE still stand, but they say here another evidence for evolution.

"Which is then tested. If you really did find a species with a whole extra chromosome, with no apparent precursor (e.g. a chromosome that had been duplicated) or a whole missing chromosome (missing lots of genes that are normally highly conserved), that would certainly be very odd, and a challenge for current evolutionary theory to explain."

No. Similarities could be evidence for common ancestry, not proof. Creationists deal in black-and-white truth and falsehood. Science has to work with the available evidence and decide which is the most probable explanation at that time.

b) We found similarities between chimps and humansthe prove of common ancestor.c) We found differences. Did evolutionist call them eviddence against common ancestror?

Neither. Both the similarities and the differences were taken in to account. The evidence was weighed and found to favor common ancestry as the better explanation.

"No. Similarities could be evidence for common ancestry, not proof. Creationists deal in black-and-white truth and falsehood. Science has to work with the available evidence and decide which is the most probable explanation at that time."

Right, I should use the frase "is evidence for" that do not change my reasoning.I usually make that mistkes because I´m called perverse to withold provisional assent.

"Neither. Both the similarities and the differences were taken in to account. The evidence was weighed and found to favor common ancestry as the better explanation.

Do not start to hide between words you weigh the evidence for and against. I wonder how do you found that favor common ancestry.

As to falsifying evolution, Dr. Behe comments in the following video on the the clear falsification criteria for intelligent design, while also noting the ridiculous 'could not possibly have evolved' that evolutionists use:

Orr maintains that the theory of intelligent design is not falsifiable. He’s wrong. To falsify design theory a scientist need only experimentally demonstrate that a bacterial flagellum, or any other comparably complex system, could arise by natural selection. If that happened I would conclude that neither flagella nor any system of similar or lesser complexity had to have been designed. In short, biochemical design would be neatly disproved.- Dr Behe in 1997

as to the ridiculous 'could not possibly have evolved' that evolutionists demand for their benchmark for falsification, well Doug Axe points out that IDists have the next best thing to that humanly impossible level of falsification:

"Charles Darwin said (paraphrase), 'If anyone could find anything that could not be had through a number of slight, successive, modifications, my theory would absolutely break down.' Well that condition has been met time and time again. Basically every gene, every protein fold. There is nothing of significance that we can show that can be had in a gradualist way. It's a mirage. None of it happens that way. - Doug Axe PhD.

As to being realistic to the evidence as to what is realistically feasible, instead of demanding a impossible 'could not possibly have evolved' level of falsification, Darwinism has indeed been falsified:

The Universal Plausibility Metric (UPM) & Principle (UPP) - Abel - Dec. 2009 Excerpt: Mere possibility is not an adequate basis for asserting scientific plausibility. A precisely defined universal bound is needed beyond which the assertion of plausibility, particularly in life-origin models, can be considered operationally falsified. But can something so seemingly relative and subjective as plausibility ever be quantified? Amazingly, the answer is, "Yes.",,,

The Case Against a Darwinian Origin of Protein Folds - Douglas Axe - 2010Excerpt Pg. 11: "Based on analysis of the genomes of 447 bacterial species, the projected number of different domain structures per species averages 991. Comparing this to the number of pathways by which metabolic processes are carried out, which is around 263 for E. coli, provides a rough figure of three or four new domain folds being needed, on average, for every new metabolic pathway. In order to accomplish this successfully, an evolutionary search would need to be capable of locating sequences that amount to anything from one in 10^159 to one in 10^308 possibilities, something the neo-Darwinian model falls short of by a very wide margin."http://bio-complexity.org/ojs/index.php/main/article/view/BIO-C.2010.1

Intelligent Design: Required by Biological Life? K.D. Kalinsky - Pg. 10 - 11Case Three: an average 300 amino acid protein:Excerpt: It is reasonable, therefore, to estimate the functional information required for the average 300 amino acid protein to be around 700 bits of information. I(Ex) > Inat and ID (Intelligent Design) is 10^155 times more probable than mindless natural processes to produce the average protein.http://www.newscholars.com/papers/ID%20Web%20Article.pdf

Also of note:

When Theory and Experiment Collide — April 16th, 2011 by Douglas AxeExcerpt: Based on our experimental observations and on calculations we made using a published population model [3], we estimated that Darwin’s mechanism would need a truly staggering amount of time—a trillion trillion years or more—to accomplish the seemingly subtle change in enzyme function that we studied.http://www.biologicinstitute.org/post/18022460402/when-theory-and-experiment-collide

From Jerry Coyne, More Table-Pounding, Hand-Waving - May 2012Excerpt: "More than 6 percent of genes found in humans simply aren't found in any form in chimpanzees. There are over fourteen hundred novel genes expressed in humans but not in chimps."Jerry Coyne - ardent and 'angry' neo-Darwinist - professor at the University of Chicago in the department of ecology and evolution for twenty years. He specializes in evolutionary genetics.

Could Chance Arrange the Code for (Just) One Gene?"our minds cannot grasp such an extremely small probability as that involved in the accidental arranging of even one gene (10^-236)."http://www.creationsafaris.com/epoi_c10.htm

Moreover the 'anomaly' of unique ORFan genes is found in every new genome sequenced:

Genomes of similar species - Cornelius Hunter PhD.Excerpt: Different variants of the Escherichia coli bacteria, for instance, each have hundreds of unique genes. And some of these genes have been found to have important functions, such as helping to construct proteins. [8]Massive genetic differences were also found between different fruit fly species. The fruit fly is one of the most intensely researched organisms and in recent years a systematic study of the genomes of a dozen different species was undertaken. Evolutionists were surprised to find novel features in the genomes of each of these different fruit fly species. Thousands of genes showed up missing in many of the species, and some genes showed up in only a single species. [9] As one science writer put it, “an astonishing 12 per cent of recently evolved genes in fruit flies appear to have evolved from scratch.” [10] These so-called novel genes would have had to have evolved over a few million years—a time period previously considered to allow only for minor genetic changes. [11,12] ,,, etc.. etc…http://www.darwinspredictions.com/#_4.2_Genomes_of

As alluded to above, completely contrary to evolutionary thought, these 'new' ORFan genes are found to be just as essential as 'old' genes for maintaining life:

Age doesn't matter: New genes are as essential as ancient ones - December 2010 Excerpt: "A new gene is as essential as any other gene; the importance of a gene is independent of its age," said Manyuan Long, PhD, Professor of Ecology & Evolution and senior author of the paper. "New genes are no longer just vinegar, they are now equally likely to be butter and bread. We were shocked." http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/12/101216142523.htm

New genes in Drosophila quickly become essential. - December 2010 Excerpt: The proportion of genes that are essential is similar in every evolutionary age group that we examined. Under constitutive silencing of these young essential genes, lethality was high in the pupal (later) stage and (but was) also found in the larval (early) stages. http://www.sciencemag.org/content/330/6011/1682.abstract

De Novo Origin of Human Protein-Coding Genes - November 10, 2011Excerpt: The de novo origin of a new protein-coding gene from non-coding DNA is considered to be a very rare occurrence in genomes. Here we identify 60 new protein-coding genes that originated de novo on the human lineage since divergence from the chimpanzee. The functionality of these genes is supported by both transcriptional and proteomic evidence.,,,Here we identify 60 new protein-coding genes that originated de novo on the human lineage since divergence from the chimpanzee, supported by both transcriptional and proteomic evidence. It is inconsistent with the traditional view that the de novo origin of new genes is rare.http://www.plosgenetics.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pgen.1002379;jsessionid=0ADFB2D28FD590F0785D9A7D2D1D4569

"A good example would be the evolution of the mammalian middle ear, which is supported by developmental, genetic and fossil evidence."

Really??? And yet reality betrays you yet again!

Neo-Darwinists have a fictitious fossil series leading from jaw bones to inner ear bones. That particular Darwinian fairy tale is addressed at the 31:49 minute mark of this following video (you have to skip over 31:49 minutes of a ‘brief’ description of the stunning engineering and design found in the ear to get to the ludicrous, and laughable, Darwinian explanation proffered by evolutionists for this amazing sophistication we find in the ear).

The Hearing Ear by Dr. David Menton - videohttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPiXlJ3eIwo

somewhat related note:

How Do We Hear Excerpt: The normal human ear can distinguish between some 400,000 different sounds, some weak enough to cause the eardrum to move as little as one-tenth (1/10) the diameter of a hydrogen molecule. http://www.midlandhearing.com/how-do-we-hear.php

As to purported 'genetic evidence for hearing, I seem to recall Darwinism being severely embarrassed for genetic evidence from whales and bats:

Common Design in Bat and Whale Echolocation Genes? - January 2011 Excerpt: two new studies in the January 26th issue of Current Biology, a Cell Press publication, show that bats' and whales' remarkable ability and the high-frequency hearing it depends on are shared at a much deeper level than anyone would have anticipated -- all the way down to the molecular level. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2011/01/common_design_in_bat_and_whale042291.html

Here's a figure showing bats and dolphins group together on the same tree based on Prestin sequence comparisons.http://sphotos.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/580955_215152708593734_182588468516825_355811_30197372_n.jpg

Menton uploaded his video in 2006, and chuckles about posited intermediates. The difference between evolutionary biologists and Menton is called research. So we have a prediction, which Menton kindly points out for us, and a confirmation of that prediction.

bornagain77: I seem to recall Darwinism being severely embarrassed for genetic evidence from whales and bats:

Actually, it's strong evidence of both common descent (synonymous substitutions support traditional tree) and convergent evolution (whereby two related organisms which independently encounter similar environments evolve similar adaptations).

Well by golly a jaw bone can turn into a middle ear all by the sheer force of imagination of neo-Darwinists,,, to bad you have no actual empirical evidence of such radical Body-plan transmorphogation:

Response to John Wise - October 2010Excerpt: But there are solid empirical grounds for arguing that changes in DNA alone cannot produce new organs or body plans. A technique called "saturation mutagenesis"1,2 has been used to produce every possible developmental mutation in fruit flies (Drosophila melanogaster),3,4,5 roundworms (Caenorhabditis elegans),6,7 and zebrafish (Danio rerio),8,9,10 and the same technique is now being applied to mice (Mus musculus).11,12 None of the evidence from these and numerous other studies of developmental mutations supports the neo-Darwinian dogma that DNA mutations can lead to new organs or body plans--because none of the observed developmental mutations benefit the organism.http://www.evolutionnews.org/2010/10/response_to_john_wise038811.html

Peer-Reviewed Paper Concludes that Darwinism "Has Pretty Much Reached the End of Its Rope" - Jonathan M. - February , 2012Excerpt: Contrary to the Darwin lobby's oft-repeated assertion that there are absolutely no weaknesses in Darwinian theory, the paper offers the concession that the modern synthesis has never provided an account of "how major forms of life evolved" -- an omission that is not unsubstantial, to put it mildly.http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/02/has_darwinism_p055941.html

You cited Menton from 2006, who pointed out that evolutionary biologists posited the existence of an intermediate organism to fill in gaps in the fossil record with regard to the evolution of mammalian ossicles. He waved his hands and chuckled at the absurdity.

While Menton sits idly, content in his ignorance, actual scientists did the hard work and found the posited intermediates. They submitted their research to a high impact scientific journal, subjecting their findings to review by their peers. Instead of adjusting your position accordingly, you simply change the subject.

Change the subject? What a hoot you have no evidence whatsoever in empirical science that such radical Body plan transmorphogation is even remotely possible and then you and other neo-Darwinists, completely oblivious to the crushing empirical failure of validation of your primary claim, act as it this little matter of having a firm basis for such radical conjecture in science is no trouble at all and continue to draw imaginary lines on sheets of paper. Imaginary lines that have no more connection to reality than does the claim the moon is made of green cheese. Suggestion; if you, or any of your neo-Darwinian buddies, decide to join real science, I suggest you guys do something like evolve even a single molecular machine by purely neo-Darwinian processes! At least then you would have something of a basis in science to work with!

i.e. Go into the lab, evolve a jawbone into a middle ear, then submit peer reviewed paper with detailed proof that you have turned a jawbone into a middle ear, receive Nobel prize, fame, and money, live happily ever after etc.. etc..!!!

How did this fusion event take place? Did a whole population experience the fusion? Did a breeding pair experience it? Did an individual experience it, who was then able to reproduce with an individual who had not experienced the fusion, producing offspring with a select-able advantage?

You can't even explain the fixation of a single unambiguously beneficial mutation in a multicellular creature!

Experimental Evolution in Fruit Flies (35 years of trying to force fruit flies to evolve in the laboratory fails, spectacularly) - October 2010Excerpt: "Despite decades of sustained selection in relatively small, sexually reproducing laboratory populations, selection did not lead to the fixation of newly arising unconditionally advantageous alleles.,,, "This research really upends the dominant paradigm about how species evolve," said ecology and evolutionary biology professor Anthony Long, the primary investigator.http://www.arn.org/blogs/index.php/literature/2010/10/07/experimental_evolution_in_fruit_flies

More from Ann Gauger on why humans didn’t happen the way Darwin said - July 2012Excerpt: Each of these new features probably required multiple mutations. Getting a feature that requires six neutral mutations is the limit of what bacteria can produce. For primates (e.g., monkeys, apes and humans) the limit is much more severe. Because of much smaller effective population sizes (an estimated ten thousand for humans instead of a billion for bacteria) and longer generation times (fifteen to twenty years per generation for humans vs. a thousand generations per year for bacteria), it would take a very long time for even a single beneficial mutation to appear and become fixed in a human population.You don’t have to take my word for it. In 2007, Durrett and Schmidt estimated in the journal Genetics that for a single mutation to occur in a nucleotide-binding site and be fixed in a primate lineage would require a waiting time of six million years. The same authors later estimated it would take 216 million years for the binding site to acquire two mutations, if the first mutation was neutral in its effect.Facing FactsBut six million years is the entire time allotted for the transition from our last common ancestor with chimps to us according to the standard evolutionary timescale. Two hundred and sixteen million years takes us back to the Triassic, when the very first mammals appeared. One or two mutations simply aren’t sufficient to produce the necessary changes— sixteen anatomical features—in the time available. At most, a new binding site might affect the regulation of one or two genes.http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/more-from-ann-gauger-on-why-humans-didnt-happen-the-way-darwin-said/

But if evolution is not taken as an a priori, then these evidences are far less compelling. From this theory-neutral perspective, what is important is not reconciling chromosome counts or chimp-human chromosome similarities (after all, those are found throughout the respective genomes). What is important is the more direct evidence of a fusion event, such as in the region where the two chromosomes would fuse, and other tell-tale signs in the chromosome two.

Here the evidence is mixed. Certainly it is far less compelling than evolutionists ever tell their audiences.

There is no question that a fusion occurred. For details about the fusion site, see:

Interstitial telomeric sequences (ITSs) are not located at the exact evolutionary breakpoints in primates. - 2009Abstract: Although their function has not yet been clearly elucidated, interstitial telomeric sequences (ITSs) have been cytogenetically associated with chromosomal reorganizations, fragile sites, and recombination hotspots. In this paper, we show that ITSs are not located at the exact evolutionary breakpoints of the inversions between human and chimpanzee and between human and rhesus macaque chromosomes. We proved that ITSs are not signs of repair in the breakpoints of the chromosome reorganizations analyzed. We found ITSs in the region (0.7-2.7 Mb) flanking one of the two breakpoints in all the inversions assessed. The presence of ITSs in those locations is not by chance. They are short (up to 7.83 repeats) and almost perfect (82.5-97.1% matches). The ITSs are conserved in the species compared, showing that they were present before the reorganizations occurred.http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19420924?dopt=Abstract

New Research Undermines Key Argument for Human Evolution by Jeffrey Tomkins, Ph.D. - February 2012Excerpt: 1. The purported fusion site on human chromosome 2 is actually located in a different position on chromosome 2 than predicted by the fusion model. The hypothetical fusion site is also in an area with suppressed recombination (meaning that the fusion sequence should be very pristine) and should exhibit very little degeneracy, compared to standard telomere sequence. Telomere sequences in humans normally consist of thousands of repeats of the standard 6-base sequence “TTAGGG.” We found that the hypothetical fusion region is completely degenerate and vaguely represents anything close to intact and fused telomeres. An earlier 2002 research report by molecular evolutionists also made note of this extreme sequence degeneracy and the obvious discrepancies it presented for the evolutionary model.32. At the purported fusion site, there is a very small number of intact telomere sequences and very few of them are in tandem or in the proper reading frame. The small number of randomly interspersed telomere sequences, both forward (“TTAGGG”) and reverse (“CCCTAA”), that populate both sides of the purported fusion site are not indicative of what should be found if an end-to-end chromosomal fusion actually took place.3. The 798-base core sequence surrounding the fusion site is not unique to the purported fusion site, but found throughout the human genome with similar sequences (80 percent or greater identity) located on nearly every chromosome. This indicates that the fusion site is some type of commonly occurring fragment of DNA in the human genome.4. No positionally corresponding regions of sequence similarity in the chimpanzee genome for the purported human fusion site were found. The 798-base core fusion-site sequence did not align (match) to any corresponding regions in the chimp genome. In fact, the sequence was considerably less common and more dissimilar in chimpanzees.5. Queries against the chimpanzee genome with fragments of human DNA sequence (alphoid sequences) found at the purported cryptic centromere site on human chromosome 2 did not produce any significant hits using two different DNA matching algorithms (BLAT and BLASTN).6. The purported cryptic centromere on human chromosome 2, like the fusion site, is in a very different location to that predicted by a fusion event.7. The DNA alphoid sequences at the putative cryptic centromere site are very diverse and form three separate sub-groups. They also do not closely match known functional human centromeric alphoid elements. Alphoid sequences are commonly found throughout the human genome, and some types of alphoid sequences are not associated with centromeres. This strongly diminishes their probability of being part of an ancient de-activated (cryptic) centromere.http://www.icr.org/article/6089/

Your 'no question' that it happened claim is the only thing I find questionable!

I read it, i.e. reorganization had to occur because 'evolution is a fact' prior to investigation which is what makes these neo-Darwinists refutation of the fusion event all the more binding! i.e. it is a neo-Darwinist, who presupposes evolution is true, who is the one saying the fusion event did not occur!

We proved that ITSs are not signs of repair in the breakpoints of the chromosome reorganizations analyzed. We found ITSs in the region (0.7-2.7 Mb) flanking one of the two breakpoints in all the inversions assessed. The presence of ITSs in those locations is not by chance.

More properly:

"the proposed fusion event 'as postulated thus far by Darwinist' did not occur."

Translation: BA77 just makes up what he needs to be true and attributes it to some paper, when (as usual) the paper he's citing says the opposite.

The only time BA77 ACCURATELY describes his citation is when it's a creationist preacher in a YouTube video.

"We found ITSs in the region (0.7-2.7 Mb) flanking one of the two breakpoints in all the inversions assessed. The presence of ITSs in those locations is not by chance. They are short (up to 7.83 repeats) and almost perfect (82.5-97.1% matches). The ITSs are conserved in the species compared, showing that they were present before the reorganizations occurred."

So the authors show that the fusion event (which is taken as a given by the authors) did not happen exactly as it was originally envisioned, and this helps evolution how??? In fact this is the very title of their article:

Interstitial telomeric sequences (ITSs) are not located at the exact evolutionary breakpoints in primates.

It seems pretty clear that there is a some type of discrepancy in breakpoint data here. I don't know, I could be wrong, Indeed, I'm not even close to being a geneticist, but not located at the exact evolutionary breakpoints is written in my native language of English. :)

Anyways, despite any misunderstanding I may have had in the implications of their paper, Bergman goes on clarify the discrepancy in the 'breakpoint data' and to show even more discrepancy with the evolutionary interpretation of the genetic data in that region here!

New Research Undermines Key Argument for Human Evolution by Jeffrey Tomkins, Ph.D. - February 2012http://www.icr.org/article/6089/

Thus once again despite whatever misunderstanding I may have had in the 2009 paper, the 'no question' that the fusion event happened claim is the only thing I find questionable!

As well Diogenes, a robust theory of science explains ALL the data coherently not just some of the data semi-coherently, so how do you explain the finding of over 1000 unique ORFan genes in humans?

From Jerry Coyne, More Table-Pounding, Hand-Waving - May 2012Excerpt: "More than 6 percent of genes found in humans simply aren't found in any form in chimpanzees. There are over fourteen hundred novel genes expressed in humans but not in chimps."Jerry Coyne - ardent and 'angry' neo-Darwinist - professor at the University of Chicago in the department of ecology and evolution for twenty years. He specializes in evolutionary genetics.

This is simply extremely problematic: A More detailed study of a sub-section of ORFan genes in humans is here:

De Novo Origin of Human Protein-Coding Genes - November 10, 2011Excerpt: The de novo origin of a new protein-coding gene from non-coding DNA is considered to be a very rare occurrence in genomes. Here we identify 60 new protein-coding genes that originated de novo on the human lineage since divergence from the chimpanzee. The functionality of these genes is supported by both transcriptional and proteomic evidence.,,,Here we identify 60 new protein-coding genes that originated de novo on the human lineage since divergence from the chimpanzee, supported by both transcriptional and proteomic evidence. It is inconsistent with the traditional view that the de novo origin of new genes is rare.http://www.plosgenetics.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pgen.1002379;jsessionid=0ADFB2D28FD590F0785D9A7D2D1D4569

to repeat what was stated earlier: You can't even demonstrate the fixation of a single unambiguously beneficial mutation in a multicellular creature much less the origination of even one novel gene!

Experimental Evolution in Fruit Flies (35 years of trying to force fruit flies to evolve in the laboratory fails, spectacularly) - October 2010Excerpt: "Despite decades of sustained selection in relatively small, sexually reproducing laboratory populations, selection did not lead to the fixation of newly arising unconditionally advantageous alleles.,,, "This research really upends the dominant paradigm about how species evolve," said ecology and evolutionary biology professor Anthony Long, the primary investigator.http://www.arn.org/blogs/index.php/literature/2010/10/07/experimental_evolution_in_fruit_flies

More from Ann Gauger on why humans didn’t happen the way Darwin said - July 2012Excerpt: Each of these new features probably required multiple mutations. Getting a feature that requires six neutral mutations is the limit of what bacteria can produce. For primates (e.g., monkeys, apes and humans) the limit is much more severe. Because of much smaller effective population sizes (an estimated ten thousand for humans instead of a billion for bacteria) and longer generation times (fifteen to twenty years per generation for humans vs. a thousand generations per year for bacteria), it would take a very long time for even a single beneficial mutation to appear and become fixed in a human population.You don’t have to take my word for it. In 2007, Durrett and Schmidt estimated in the journal Genetics that for a single mutation to occur in a nucleotide-binding site and be fixed in a primate lineage would require a waiting time of six million years. The same authors later estimated it would take 216 million years for the binding site to acquire two mutations, if the first mutation was neutral in its effect.Facing FactsBut six million years is the entire time allotted for the transition from our last common ancestor with chimps to us according to the standard evolutionary timescale. Two hundred and sixteen million years takes us back to the Triassic, when the very first mammals appeared. One or two mutations simply aren’t sufficient to produce the necessary changes— sixteen anatomical features—in the time available. At most, a new binding site might affect the regulation of one or two genes.http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/more-from-ann-gauger-on-why-humans-didnt-happen-the-way-darwin-said/

Yes, it does have to do with "alleged shared ancestry with chimps", Joe, because the fused chromosome consists of two halves that are very similar to modern chimp chromosomes 2 and 2 respectively, indicating a common ancestral population (common to chimps and humans) that diverged into at least two lineages, one of which had the fused chromosome, and ended up as us, and one of which had the separate chromosomes, and ended up as modern chimps.

No, but the distribution of similarities as a tree strongly suggest it."

So, similarities don't prove common ancestor.

Next step: Do distribution of similarities (ops! differences also) as a tree (ops! btw, a really problematic tree which is drawn by evolutionary hot debated assumptions) prove it anyway?

Well, no. It strongly "suggests/indicates" it.(Elizabeth)"Similarities 'could' be evidence for common ancestry, not proof." Creationists are the ones who "deal in black-and-white truth and falsehood. Science has to work with the available evidence and decide which is the most 'probable' explanation at that time."(Ian)

So, what do we (science) have as a conclusion for this specific reasoning/explanation?

a)Human evolution from ape-like precursors is a fact, beyond any reasonable doubt.b)God doesn't exist.c)Life (and Adam and Eve), the universe, the earth weren't created by God.d) none of the above.

I choose letter "d". But being this post about "religion and rationalism at the heart of evolutionary thought"/"dogmatic assertions", maybe it won't be a surprise to find an evolutionist who chooses "a" or change "d" to "all of the above".

Darcy: Next step: Do distribution of similarities (ops! differences also) as a tree (ops! btw, a really problematic tree which is drawn by evolutionary hot debated assumptions) prove it anyway?

Obviously if you are going to plot a distribution of similarities, you are going to be plotting a distribution of dissimilarities at the same time, unless your "similarities" were "identities" in which case, you wouldn't have anything to plot.

And no, the tree is not "a really problematic tree", and it strongly supports (does not prove - we don't do proof in science) common ancestry of divergent lineages.

a)Human evolution from ape-like precursors is a fact, beyond any reasonable doubt.

Yes. In fact from precursors who were ancestors of both apes (non-human apes, that is - we are, technically, apes) and ourselves.

b)God doesn't exist.

That is not a statement that can be determined by science, unless God is defined precisely.

c)Life (and Adam and Eve), the universe, the earth weren't created by God.

Again, it depends how precise your claim is. We can certain conclude with a high level of confidence that the human population was never as small as two people, nor that there was ever a bottleneck as small as the alleged human survivors of the flood.

You can always tell when Cornelius posts a particularly silly anti-science rant as in this case. Batspit77, feeling the need to defend the inanity, runs amok with his C&Ped vomiting. It's like ba77 is trying to bury and hide the Creationist embarrassment under a 10' blanket of smelly goo.

ba77 is a force of nature. Its onsets are unpredictable and have nothing to do with the presence or lack of depth in Hunter's posts.

That said, it is notable that Hunter himself has entirely withdrawn from the comments section. He no longer bothers defending his position. In fact, he has had nothing new to say in a while. He has started playing golden oldies. Fighting an uphill battle is tiresome.

Ever since Darwin called for skeptics to prove his speculative ideas wrong this strategy of shifting the burden of proof has been a favorite of evolutionists.

Except that Darwin went above and beyond his duty to provide evidence to support his claim when he publsished a substantial tome called On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life

Darwin wrote:

If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down. But I can find out no such case.

But this was hardly a concession. Darwin may sound generous here, allowing that his theory would “absolutely break down,” but his requirement for such a failure is no less than impossible. For no one can show that an organ “could not possibly” have been formed in such a way.

In other words, you agree with evolutionists that Michael Behe has no grounds for his claim of irreducible complexity.

Note to BA77, you should include that passage from our host amongst your stock quotations.

Re-reading Cornelius's post, it does strike me that the DI must be seriously worried about the fused chromosome.

As Cornelius says, "the story is reasonable enough". Indeed it is.

All Cornelius can throw at it is some unsupported stuff about the fusion not being exactly what we would expect from a fusion event, plus some unsupported aspersions about the intellectual integrity of evolutionary scientists.

No, the reasoning is not circular, Cornelius, as a moments honest thought will reveal to you.

And while ID is perfectly compatible with common descent (anything is compatible with ID), common descent is the obvious conclusion from the data.

If it is false, then the ID must have dearly wanted us to think it was true.

As usual, Cornelius' post is an argument from ignorance based on his parochial views which he shares with his target audience.

Specifically, presenting the fusion of human chromosome 2 as evidence for evolution would only be a "lie" or "misdemeanor" if one assumes that empirical evidence can only play a specific role in science. In particular, the role which Cornelius thinks empirical evidence plays as an empiricist.

All I need to do is point out that empiricism, verificationism, etc. were ideas about science which have been found in error and discarded. Furthermore, our best, current explanations of human knowledge no longer include inductivism. This is because no one has formulated a "principle of induction" that actually works in practice.

So, Cornelius is projecting his problem based on his particular conception of science and human knowledge, on "evolutionists", by assuming everyone is an empiricist or that everyone is concerned about the same things he is. Posts such as this are geared to his target audience which holds the same views that he does. It's in this sense that his arguments are parochial.

For a concrete, detailed alternative to empiricism, which still includes empirical evidence, see Critical Rationalism.

Given the lack of a working means to prove anything is absolutely, exhaustively true, what science does is make progress by adapting, retaining and discarding explanations, which allow us to solve problems.

Specifically, Karl Popper presented a demarcation criteria for science in his works The Logic of Scientific Discovery and Objective Knowelge. Under this criteria the fusion of human chromosome 2 as evidence for evolution would not be a "lie" or "misdemeanor".

Of course, if Cornelius would like to enlighten us how it's possible to extrapolate observations without first putting them into an explanatory framework or present a "principle of induction" that actually works, in practice, I'm all ears. However, Cornelius has yet to even acknowledge said demarcation criteria exists, let alone present any sort of argument criticizing it.

Given that he appears to think it's "obviously" wrong for some reason he hasn't elaborated on, it would seem he cannot recognize his own conception of human knowledge as an idea that would be subject to criticism.

So, to summarize, Cornelius' continued claims of dishonesty and misrepresentation of science are disingenuous as they represent an argument from ignorance.

CH: Evolutionists believe that this chromosomal arrangement would never have been designed or created. The key word here is “believe.” It is a religious argument and it is here that evolution has all its strength. Again, Miller makes it clear:

As Miller points out, he's a Roman Catholic. So, he's not just referring to any designer, but the designer of Catholicism.

As such, he's not referring to a incompetent or tinkering designer. Nor is he referring to a malevolent designer. Nor is he referring to a group of all knowing, all powerful designers that have different goals, which end up with a design that none of them wanted, etc.

Furthermore, unlike you, I'm not wed to any particular conception of God. Nor have human conceptions of gods always had a moral axis. In fact, history has shown that a moral axis appeared gradually as communities and civilizations grew and consolidated.

So, it's not black and white as you're trying to portray.

This is an example of yet another parochial argument that assumes no other options exist other than those accepted by your target audience.

Dr. Cornelius' post this time, while unforgivably long and verbose, is lacking in scientific facts to support it. As usual, his key fact-claims, upon which all of his logic depends, are unsupported by any evidence.

But he makes up for it with vituperative ad hominemen attacks! Who needs evidence when you've got ad hominems? Thus Dr. Cornelius badly misrepresents Carl Zimmer.

Why? I guess the chromosome-2-fusion story really hurts the creationists-- here's a story even a sixth grader could understand. So what's their strategy? Pour hate, hate on evolutionists, attempt to overwhelm the audience with emotional hatred for science and evolutionists as people.

But evidence? Nah. Too busy.

There are problems with the evidence. Perhaps the fusion event occurred, but the evidence carries nowhere near the certainty that evolutionists insist it does. It is not so much that the evidence is conclusive against the event but that it is not conclusive for the event as evolutionists claim.

What problems with the evidence, specifically? This key fact-claim is not referenced to any scientific literature nor any hint as to what it means or where it came from.

This blog post is maybe 6 pages long, dull as dish water, and Dr. Cornelius can't be bothered to even hint at what the problems might be, or give us a citation or reference.

What did Zimmer do that was so bad? On the Biologic Institute's Facebook page, the DI posted a couple of quotes from an unnamed authority to make it appear that chromosome 2 fusion was scientifically impossible.

So Zimmer asked a simple, simple, simple question-- from what scientific paper did the DI get those authority quotes?-- and no one at the DI would answer him. No one at the DI could back up their fact claims; no one could copy and paste that citation.

But abuse and insult Zimmer? Sure! Everyone at the DI does that. Scientific references, they can't manage. But ad hominem attacks-- right on!

David Klinghoffer of course, and now Dr. Cornelius piles on:

he [Zimmer] demanded that skeptics of the chromosome two argument show why the evolutionary fusion hypothesis is not possible... It is the evolutionists strategy to shift the burden of proof so that evolution enjoys the position of being true by default.

Zimmer did no such thing. The DI posted two quotes on their FB page. Zimmer asked where the quotes came from.

Instead of simply copying-n-pasting a reference or citation into the FB page, everyone at the DI and UD-- Klinghoffer, Dr. Cornelius, and now Denyse O'Leary-- poured ad hominems onto Zimmer.

Furthermore such an event, if it could survive, would have to take over the pre human population. In other words, the existing 48 chromosome population would have to die off.

No, the existing chromosome population would *NOT* have to die off! There is no guarantee that organisms with different chromosome numbers are not inter-fertile.

There are examples of karyotypic variations *WITHIN* species, like goats (daMota and da Silva (1998)) and marsh rats (Nachman and Myers (1989)). Also those mice on the island of Madeira.

Thus, a karyotypic change could spread through a population as a neutral mutation and become fixed. That is not "dying off", that's fixation.

In fact, in Luskin's book he considers the chromosomal fusion in humans (if it occurred) would be neutral. So it's fixation.

There are many examples of sub-species or closely related species that are products of chromosomal fusions. Too many to list. Domestic horses from Przewalski's horse. Zebras. Tanuki. Dogs, jackals, foxes. Many of them.

This is certainly not a successful prediction of evolution in any meaningful sense in that it is very much questionable that the event even took place!,, Moreover, seemingly successful predictions are very easy for even a theory of science that is completely wrong. Geocentric theory is a prime example. In fact, because false theories of science are able to make seemingly successful predictions, this led Lakatos to conclude that the best way to separate a true scientific theory from a pseudo-scientific theory was to note the pattern of addition explanations that are needed to 'explain away' incongruent findings:

Science and Pseudoscience (transcript) -"In degenerating programmes (of science), however, theories are fabricated only in order to accommodate known facts" - Lakatoshttp://www2.lse.ac.uk/philosophy/about/lakatos/scienceandpseudosciencetranscript.aspx

And there are many such examples of Darwinists 'explaining away' findings with 'fabricated' stories:

How to Play the Gene Evolution Game – Casey Luskin – Feb. 2010http://www.evolutionnews.org/2010/02/how_to_play_the_gene_evolution032141.html

A Primer on the Tree of Life – Casey Luskin – 2009Excerpt: whenever data contradicts expectations of common descent, evolutionists resort to a variety of different ad hoc rationalizations to save common descent from being falsified.http://www.discovery.org/a/10651

Evolution Falsified Yet Again: They Are So Complicated “That it’s Stunning” - Cornelius Hunter - April 2012Excerpt: These similarities between the Euglenids and Dinoflagellates, of very odd and peculiar traits, disproves evolution yet again. It’s just another example of how the evidence explains evolution rather than evolution explaining the evidence. Evolution is a tautology. It is contorted to fit whatever we find in nature, no matter how absurd the theory must become.http://darwins-god.blogspot.com/2012/04/evolution-falsified-yet-again-they-are.html

The following article goes through a bit of the history of how neo-Darwinists have come to use horizontal gene transfer to explain (away) contradictory patterns in the genetic evidence;

Evolutionists Celebrated This Prediction But When it Later Failed They Didn’t Care - Cornelius Hunter - April 2012Excerpt: Sometimes their use of this lateral or horizontal gene transfer mechanism is a real stretch. And in any case, their story calls for evolution to have created this incredible mechanism which then was so important for adaptation and the supposed subsequent evolution. In other words, evolution created evolution.,,, In some cases evolutionists have no idea, beyond pure speculation, about how it could have happened. As they admit in one paper: "An alternative and more plausible possibility is that the STC gene has been laterally transferred among phylogenetically diverged eukaryotes through an unknown mechanism."http://darwins-god.blogspot.com/2012/04/evolutionists-celebrated-this.html

Of note:

Pattern pluralism and the Tree of Life hypothesis – 2006Excerpt: Hierarchical structure can always be imposed on or extracted from such data sets by algorithms designed to do so, but at its base the universal TOL rests on an unproven assumption about pattern that, given what we know about process, is unlikely to be broadly true.http://www.pnas.org/content/104/7/2043.abstract

Here is how neo-Darwinian evolution avoids falsification from the fossil record;

"What Would Disprove Evolution?" - July 10, 2012Excerpt: Fossils are found in the "wrong place" all the time (either too early, or too late). Paleontological theory, however, allows for such devices as "ghost lineages" to repair the damage; see ENV's coverage here and here. (links on the site)Again, discordance between molecular and anatomical phylogenies is commonplace in systematics; see here.(link on the site)But we expect Coyne is able to handle these anomalies via his shock-absorbing adjective "complete," which allows an indefinitely large range of possibilities, short of "complete" discordance (whatever that means).http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/07/what_would_disp061891.html

Seeing Ghosts in the Bushes (Part 2): How Is Common Descent Tested? – Paul Nelson – Feb. 2010Excerpt: Fig. 6. Multiple possible ad hoc or auxiliary hypotheses are available to explain lack of congruence between the fossil record and cladistic predictions. These may be employed singly or in combination. Common descent (CD) is thus protected from observational challenge.http://www.evolutionnews.org/2010/02/seeing_ghosts_in_the_bushes_pa031061.html

The Fossil Record and Falsifiable Predictions For ID – Casey Luskin – Audiohttp://intelligentdesign.podomatic.com/player/web/2010-03-26T14_56_42-07_00

Here is how evolutionists avoid falsification from the biogeographical data of finding numerous and highly similar species in widely separated locations:

More Biogeographical Conundrums for Neo-Darwinism – March 2010http://www.evolutionnews.org/2010/03/sea_monkeys_are_the_tip_of_the032471.html

The Case of the Mysterious Hoatzin: Biogeography Fails Neo-Darwinism Again – Casey Luskin – November 5, 2011Excerpt: If two similar species separated by thousands of kilometers across oceans cannot challenge common descent, what biogeographical data can? The way evolutionists treat it, there is virtually no biogeographical data that can challenge common descent even in principle. If that’s the case, then how can biogeography be said to support common descent in the first place?http://www.evolutionnews.org/2011/11/the_case_of_the_mysterious_hoa052571.html

Many more instances of Darwinism avoiding falsification from the empirical data, by ad hoc models (rationalizations), are found in this following site:

As to the claim that ID does not make, nor has not made, successful predictions, this accusation is simply completely false, especially with the finding that Junk DNA is not Junk, indeed many papers are literally coming out every week describing function for what were thought to be functionless sections of DNA by evolutionists:

Further note

A Response to Questions from a Biology Teacher: How Do We Test Intelligent Design? - March 2010Excerpt: Regarding testability, ID (Intelligent Design) makes the following testable predictions:(1) Natural structures will be found that contain many parts arranged in intricate patterns that perform a specific function (e.g. complex and specified information).(2) Forms containing large amounts of novel information will appear in the fossil record suddenly and without similar precursors.(3) Convergence will occur routinely. That is, genes and other functional parts will be re-used in different and unrelated organisms.(4) Much so-called “junk DNA” will turn out to perform valuable functions.http://www.evolutionnews.org/2010/03/a_response_to_questions_from_a.html

Also of note is that Darwinism has no rigid falsification criteria, whereas ID can easily be falsified:

The Bible uses two words Hebrew words describing the creation of humans, "asa" and "bara." The commentators from the Classical period and the Middle Ages discuss the shades of meaning of each word. "Bara" means the creation of something completely new. "Asa" implies the reusing of something pre-existing. This means that when God created humans, He used components from creatures already created (ape chromosomes ?) and modified them (fused the chromosomes ?). So the chromosomal fusion is perfectly consistent with theologies that are two millenia old.

Were biblical scholars completely bewildered about the meaning of these words until the advent of genetics? Is it possible to be inconsistent with this description of the Designer's technique,after it seems to cover all bases?

I'm not sure what you mean by bewildered. I suspect that they interpreted them to mean that humans have characteristics of animals, and characteristics that are unique. Modern genetics seems to confirm that.

I would imagine that the ancient commentators said that Humans have an animal body with unique intelligence and a soul. God started with an animal template, then modified it in unique ways. The genetic evidence seems to conform to this.

"Abstract: Human chromosome 2 was formed by the head-to-head fusion of two ancestral chromosomes that remained separate in other primates. Sequences that once resided near the ends of the ancestral chromosomes are now interstitially located in 2q13–2q14.1. Portions of these sequences had duplicated to other locations prior to the fusion. Here we present analyses of the genomic structure and evolutionary history of >600 kb surrounding the fusion site and closely related sequences on other human chromosomes. Sequence blocks that closely flank the inverted arrays of degenerate telomere repeats marking the fusion site are duplicated at many, primarily subtelomeric, locations. In addition, large portions of a 168-kb centromere-proximal block are duplicated at 9pter, 9p11.2, and 9q13, with 98%–99% average sequence identity. A 67-kb block on the distal side of the fusion site is highly homologous to sequences at 22qter. A third ∼100-kb segment is 96% identical to a region in 2q11.2. By integrating data on the extent and similarity of these paralogous blocks, including the presence of phylogenetically informative repetitive elements, with observations of their chromosomal distribution in nonhuman primates, we infer the order of the duplications that led to their current arrangement. Several of these duplicated blocks may be associated with breakpoints of inversions that occurred during primate evolution and of recurrent chromosome rearrangements in humans."

To the surprise of exactly no one, in his book Luskin lied about the contents and conclusions of the paper.

This whole episode has done an excellent job of shining a light on the nest of slimy cockroaches that inhabit the DI.

The mice were healthy enough to grow up and have babies. But from one generation to the next, their telomeres got shorter until they disappeared. After just four generations, the mice suffered an explosion of chromosome fusion. Their dangling DNA then began to get chewed away, damaging their genes until they became sterile.

You Darwinists are blinded by your materialist bias.

In his effort to defend himself against the charge that we can't know for sure that human chromosome two was formed by fusion, Zimmer cites an experiment in which mice "suffered an explosion of chromosome fusion."

And what was the outcome?

Their DNA was so damaged they became sterile.

And how do Darwinists claim that humans were formed? By chromosomal fusion.

Now, can I ask some simple questions:

Did the mice become rats? No. Did they become hens? No. Did they become monkeys? No.

They became STERILE.

But, somehow, in the minds of great thinkers such as evolutionary biologists, THIS is the explanation of why humans are no longer apes.

Fantastic! I'm impressed.

So, instead of noticing that this article debunks his theory, desperate to salvage his hypothesis, Zimmer writes:

This experiment and other studies indicate that defective telomeres with few repeats are vulnerable to chromosome fusion. So it would be no surprise to find that a fusion between two chromosome had a low number of repeating bits of DNA.

Do you guys ever try and think things through?

Zimmer's argument is completely demolished. And he's the one who demolished it!!

Pav you moron, did you bother reading the purpose for the experiment and WHY the fusion failed?

"When cells divide, however, telomeres tend to get chewed up. To keep telomeres big enough to protect their chromosomes, telomerases keep adding more DNA to them. In a 1997 paper, Nobel-prize-winning biologist Carol Greider and her colleagues illustrated just how important this addition is by creating mutant mice that couldn’t produce telomerase–and could therefore not add extra DNA to their telomeres.

The mice were healthy enough to grow up and have babies. But from one generation to the next, their telomeres got shorter until they disappeared. After just four generations, the mice suffered an explosion of chromosome fusion. Their dangling DNA then began to get chewed away, damaging their genes until they became sterile."

Humans don't have the problem that was deliberately induced in these mice.

You'll always be ignorant as long you idiots never bother to *READ* the actual papers instead of just knee-jerk slobbering when you see a few buzzwords.

Whatever bloviating you want to indulge in, facts are facts. And the fact is that these mice remained the same, despite "suffer[ing] an explosion of chromosomal fusion."

To simply provide the reason why these fusions took place as being some kind of rebuttal to my point is rather feeble and lame.

The entire reason that Zimmer quotes this paper is to suggest that we should expect the telomeric lengths of the "fused" ape/human chromosomes to be shortened---as is found in human chromosome 2. But he's missing the forest for the trees: while explaining why the telomeric sections are so short, he's pointing out at the same time that an "explosion of chromosomal fusion" failed to induce mice to become anything other than mice.

Wake up! Smell the coffee!

This isn't about "reading comprehension." This is about "interpretation." This is about finding out what makes the most sense.

As CH points out, ID movement has the freedom to simply say that we don't know enough to say whether chromosome 2 represents a fusion event, or not. But Darwinists, compelled by their unbridled "faith" in Darwinism, have to have to posit some kind of causation event, even though that event is doubtful.

Maybe you can, but the evidence is you don't bother to read. That's why you stay so ignorant and uninformed.

But he's missing the forest for the trees: while explaining why the telomeric sections are so short, he's pointing out at the same time that an "explosion of chromosomal fusion" failed to induce mice to become anything other than mice.

And the proto-human ancestors who evolved from 48 to 46 chromosomes were still proto-human ancestors.

oleg said:"We don't know nuttin' seems to be the motto of the ID movement. Here is David Klinghoffer celebrating ignorance: A Veil Is Drawn Over Our Origin as Human Beings."

Methodological naturalism assumes science as space and time limited knowledege. So it is natural say "We don`t know" specially for unique events in the past.Metaphysical naturalism mandates everything is cause by physical universal and constant laws, then do not know it is a failure.

The fusion doesn't have anything to do with our alleged common ancestry with chimps. It occurred in the human lineage. Humans could have been designed with 24 pairs- separate from chimps.

Also where are the populations of humans with 24 pairs and those with a mix 23/24? The theory of evolution would expect these but they are nowhere to be found. Why isn't that evidence against the claim?

A good example would be the evolution of the mammalian middle ear, which is supported by developmental, genetic and fossil evidence.

There isn't any genetic evidence that supports the transformation. There isn't any developmental evidence taht supports the transformation and the fossils = "I wouldn't have seen it if I didn't already believe it"

For evolutionists it's all about confirming their fact by cherry picking evidence. Their patient is on artifical life support.

For evolutionists, Darwin produced a masterful work regardless if he relegated women and blacks to a more primitive mental status. His observational powers were deeply flawed and muddy.

His crown jewel of rhetoric and pseudo science is nicely hightlighted by Cornelius...

"If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down. But I can find out no such case"

No, how about demonstrating how any organ (try the least complex) can be formed by numerous successive, slight modifications? Here's a man that was absolutely and completely clueness about genetics saying, "But I can find out no such case". Really? How would you know? The tradition continues and it is an absolute fraud that such parochial statements like this are allowed to stand.

Neal: For evolutionists, Darwin produced a masterful work regardless if he relegated women and blacks to a more primitive mental status. His observational powers were deeply flawed and muddy.

Neal, are you familiar with the Genetic fallacy? I'm asking because you just committed it.

Specifically, Darwin's observational powers, or lack there of, are irrelevant as to whether evolutionary theory represents the best explanation for biological complexity we observe *today*.

Darwin could have tortured puppies and worshiped Satan - neither of which would be relevant to the current scientific merit of the theory he originated.

Furthermore, as with most scientific theories, we understand Darwin's theory far better than he did then. And others will understand it better than we do now in the future. This is how science works.

This is in contrast to your conception of human knowledge, which is black and white, exhaustively true or false, etc.

In other words, it's not clear that we're even concerned with the same things, as science is about solving problems by making progress.

So, whether evolutionary theory is falsifiable today doesn't hinge on anything that Darwin said in the past. After all, we hadn't even discovered DNA yet, which is a key aspects of evolutionary theory.

Whatever Darwin originated it still doesn't have any evidentiary support. And teh problem of how humans evolved from knuckle-walkers has yet to solved- heck no one even knows if such a thing is possible.

LOL! Good one Chubs! Link to a YEC Apolgetics site that offers this 'scientific' explanation:

"No evidence or any line of rational thought can explain how a single human underwent a genetic chromosomal fusion and passed that alteration to all of mankind—except that he was created by God at the beginning, along with woman, with that chromosomal makeup."

(Chromosome 2 fusion?) Ends In the Middle: Internal Telomere Sequences are Common in the Human Genome - Tomkins, J. and J. Bergman - July 12, 2012Excerpt: This fusion paradigm or model involves several genetic issues. In two recent Journal of Creation publications by myself and colleague Jerry Bergman, it is shown that the published genetic data surrounding the fusion model, including additional recent bioinformatic analyses that I performed, effectively show that the hypothetical fusion event did not occur (2,3).During the course of my research, it became apparent that the presence of telomere repeats within the internal regions of human chromosomes was more prevalent than commonly realized. While a number of studies have characterized a few internal telomere-rich areas, the genome-wide distribution of internal telomere sequences is not well documented in the scientific literature.In my research, it became evident that telomere repeats were not unique to the ends of chromosomes. Therefore, I developed software that enables the scanning of whole chromosomes for internal telomere content. Fully assembled human chromosome sequence was then downloaded from the public DNA repository at the National Center for Biotechnology. Prior to scanning for telomeres and telomere repeats, the ends of each chromosome were manually trimmed to remove the telomeres at the termini, including telomere-dense areas in adjacent sub-telomeres.Surprisingly, I discovered that the entire human genome contains many completely intact internal telomere sequences. My preliminary data suggests that the internal regions of human chromosomes are composed of 0.19 to 0.25 percent 100% sequence identity intact telomere sequences. While this may seem to be a very small amount, consider that chromosome 2 (the supposed fusion product) contains over 91,000 (0.23 percent) intact internal telomere sequences. Fewer than 300 of these can be attributed to the so-called fusion site. Chromosome Y was the most internally dense telomere containing chromosome (0.25 percent).The scanning software also detected tandem repeats of telomeres. In the fusion site on chromosome 2, there are a small number of cases where the 6-base telomeres occur in perfect tandem, but never more than two in a row. However, other internal regions of chromosome 2 contain perfect tandems of 3 to 10 telomere repeats. In fact, all human chromosomes contain many internal regions of perfect tandem telomere repeats.Clearly, the presence of telomere sequence at the so-called fusion site is not a unique feature, but a genome-wide paradigm. I hope to have my human genome telomere scanning research published soon in a refereed science paper and will make a note of it on this blog when that time comes.http://designed-dna.org/blog/files/d565c8e0bd41f9de83af00d9711258f6-27.php

Where was this latest YEC idiocy published? Why, in that leading edge of scientific knowledge Creation Ministries International Journal of Creation. They describe themselves as "Journal of Creation brings you in-depth, peer-reviewed comment, reviews and the latest research findings that relate to origins and the biblical account of Creation, the Flood and the Fall."

Thorton perhaps you can comment on the findings instead of issuing a ad hominem? Especially since, ironically, your very own atheistic/materialistic worldview cannot even ground a rational epistemological basis for practice the 'doing science' in the first place? I mean really Thorton, at least YEC's can justify a coherent purpose for 'doing science' whereas materialists deny any true purpose even exists in reality in the first place? i.e. dog, tail, chase!!!,,, In my view, the finding certainly is very interesting and seems to be well researched. The finding certainly seems to undermine the fusion argument from the 'inside out' instead of undermining it from what may termed 'the implausibility of external factors'. This piece of evidence that Darwinists have continually hammered on, while ignoring many other pieces of crushing evidence that undermines Darwinism, is certainly not nearly as strong as what you guys have made it out to be thus far as is shown by what seems to be solid research.

Ian, Isn't that the same PZ Myers who use to champion the upwards to 90% junk DNA argument? In fact I believe he still recently claimed in a lecture that it was well over 50 percent junk DNA. Oh well so much for being unbiased when evaluating the evidence!

Doubling the information from the Double Helix - April 27, 2012Excerpt: The study’s findings have shown that two microRNA genes with different functions can be produced from the same piece (sequence) of DNA — one is produced from the top strand and another from the bottom complementary ‘mirror’ strand. Specifically, the research has shown that a single piece of human DNA gives rise to two fully processed microRNA genes that are expressed in the brain and have different and previously unknown functions. One microRNA is expressed in the parts of nerve cells that are known to control memory function and the other microRNA controls the processes that move protein cargos around nerve cells.,,,Helen Scott and Joanna Howarth, the lead authors on the study, added: “We have now found that both sides of the double helix can each produce a microRNA. These two microRNAs are almost a perfect mirror of each other, but due to slight differences in their sequence, they regulate different sets of protein producing RNAs, which will in turn affect different biological functions. Such mirror-miRNAs are likely to represent a new group of microRNAs with complex roles in coordinating gene expression, doubling the capacity of regulation.”http://phys.org/news/2012-04-helix.html

Human DNA is like a computer program but far, far more advanced than any software we've ever created.Bill Gates, The Road Ahead, 1996, p. 188

3-D Structure Of Human Genome: Fractal Globule Architecture Packs Two Meters Of DNA Into Each Cell - Oct. 2009Excerpt: the information density in the nucleus is trillions of times higher than on a computer chip -- while avoiding the knots and tangles that might interfere with the cell's ability to read its own genome. Moreover, the DNA can easily unfold and refold during gene activation, gene repression, and cell replication.http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/10/091008142957.htm

Scientists' 3-D View of Genes-at-Work Is Paradigm Shift in Genetics - Dec. 2009Excerpt: Highly coordinated chromosomal choreography leads genes and the sequences controlling them, which are often positioned huge distances apart on chromosomes, to these 'hot spots'. Once close together within the same transcription factory, genes get switched on (a process called transcription) at an appropriate level at the right time in a specific cell type. This is the first demonstration that genes encoding proteins with related physiological role visit the same factory.http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/12/091215160649.htm

Quantum Dots Spotlight DNA-Repair Proteins in Motion - March 2010Excerpt: "How this system works is an important unanswered question in this field," he said. "It has to be able to identify very small mistakes in a 3-dimensional morass of gene strands. It's akin to spotting potholes on every street all over the country and getting them fixed before the next rush hour." Dr. Bennett Van Houten - of note: A bacterium has about 40 team members on its pothole crew. That allows its entire genome to be scanned for errors in 20 minutes, the typical doubling time.,, These smart machines can apparently also interact with other damage control teams if they cannot fix the problem on the spot.http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/03/100311123522.htm

The next evolutionary synthesis: Jonathan BL BardExcerpt: We now know that there are at least 50 possible functions that DNA sequences can fulfill [8], that the networks for traits require many proteins and that they allow for considerable redundancy [9]. The reality is that the evolutionary synthesis says nothing about any of this; for all its claim of being grounded in DNA and mutation, it is actually a theory based on phenotypic traits. This is not to say that the evolutionary synthesis is wrong, but that it is inadequate – it is really only half a theory!http://www.biosignaling.com/content/pdf/1478-811X-9-30.pdf

DNA Caught Rock 'N Rollin': On Rare Occasions DNA Dances Itself Into a Different Shape - January 2011Excerpt: Because critical interactions between DNA and proteins are thought to be directed by both the sequence of bases and the flexing of the molecule, these excited states represent a whole new level of information contained in the genetic code,http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/01/110128104244.htm

Systems biology: Untangling the protein web - July 2009Excerpt: Vidal thinks that technological improvements — especially in nanotechnology, to generate more data, and microscopy, to explore interaction inside cells, along with increased computer power — are required to push systems biology forward. "Combine all this and you can start to think that maybe some of the information flow can be captured," he says. But when it comes to figuring out the best way to explore information flow in cells, Tyers jokes that it is like comparing different degrees of infinity. "The interesting point coming out of all these studies is how complex these systems are — the different feedback loops and how they cross-regulate each other and adapt to perturbations are only just becoming apparent," he says. "The simple pathway models are a gross oversimplification of what is actually happening."http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v460/n7253/full/460415a.html

Why does ba77 keep bringing up YEC papers as if they were serious scientific literature?

Well why do Darwinists keep bringing up Darwinian papers as if they were serious scientific literature?

Is evolution pseudoscience?Excerpt:,,, Thus, of the ten characteristics of pseudoscience listed in the Skeptic’s Dictionary, evolution meets nine. Few other pseudosciences — astrology, astral projection, alien abduction, crystal power, or whatever — would meet so many.http://creation.com/is-evolution-pseudoscience

Darwin's diabolical delusions - Ellis Washington - September 2011Excerpt: Tragically, for over 150 years since the publication of Darwin's diabolical, anti-scientific book, "On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life," nonpartisan science, truth, logic and deductive reasoning have been ruthlessly suppressed and replaced with state-funded Darwinist propaganda, groupthink, education atheism, liberal fascism and Machiavellian tactics as demonstrated in the Sewell case representing the ongoing battles between the Darwin Gestapo and Intelligent Design scientists.http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=343445

Why Do We Invoke Darwin?"Certainly, my own research with antibiotics during World War II received no guidance from insights provided by Darwinian evolution. Nor did Alexander Fleming's discovery of bacterial inhibition by penicillin. I recently asked more than 70 eminent researchers if they would have done their work differently if they had thought Darwin's theory was wrong. The responses were all the same: No.I also examined the outstanding biodiscoveries of the past century: the discovery of the double helix; the characterization of the ribosome; the mapping of genomes; research on medications and drug reactions; improvements in food production and sanitation; the development of new surgeries; and others. I even queried biologists working in areas where one would expect the Darwinian paradigm to have most benefited research, such as the emergence of resistance to antibiotics and pesticides. Here, as elsewhere, I found that Darwin's theory had provided no discernible guidance, but was brought in, after the breakthroughs, as an interesting narrative gloss.

In the peer-reviewed literature, the word "evolution" often occurs as a sort of coda to academic papers in experimental biology. Is the term integral or superfluous to the substance of these papers? To find out, I substituted for "evolution" some other word – "Buddhism," "Aztec cosmology," or even "creationism." I found that the substitution never touched the paper's core. This did not surprise me. From my conversations with leading researchers it had became clear that modern experimental biology gains its strength from the availability of new instruments and methodologies, not from an immersion in historical biology.Philip S. Skell - (the late) Professor at Pennsylvania State University.http://www.discovery.org/a/2816

An example of that 'narrative gloss' is shown in the following video by Dr. Behe:

How Do We Know Intelligent Design Is a Scientific "Theory"? - Casey Luskin - October 2011Excerpt: ID is supported by a vast body of evidence ranging from physics and cosmology to biochemistry to animal biology to systems biology to epigenetics and paleontology. ID more than exceeds the NAS's definitions of "theory."http://www.evolutionnews.org/2011/10/how_do_we_know_intelligent_des051841.html

Ironically, the use of the popular Anti-Science labeling in politics should be applied to Charles Darwin−the founder of modern evolutionary thought.

Anti-Science IronyExcerpt: In the prelude to The Origin of Species, Darwin quotes from William Whewell and Francis Bacon. Ironically, since even the fossil record failed to support his theory, Darwin was forced to abandon the Scientific Method. Darwin was painfully aware that the Cambrian Explosion actually contradicted his theory.

In response to a letter from Asa Gray, professor of biology at Harvard University, Darwin declared: “I am quite conscious that my speculations run quite beyond the bounds of true science.” Darwin was “anti-Science”.

When questioned further by Gray, Darwin confirmed Gray’s suspicions: “What you hint at generally is very, very true: that my work is grievously hypothetical, and large parts are by no means worthy of being called induction.” Darwin had turned against the use of scientific principles in developing his theory of evolution. The “Anti-Science” movement was popular in the nineteenth century, sponsored by the emerging influential members of the X Club.

Darwin was very concerned about the effect of the Anti-Science approach. Just two weeks before the lease of The Origin of Species, Erasmus Darwin, his brother, consoled him in a letter: “In fact, the a priori reasoning is so entirely satisfactory to me that if the facts [evidence] won’t fit, why so much the worse for the facts, in my feeling.”

In the final chapter of The Origin of Species, Darwin actually only lends hedging confidence to his theory of evolution, noting that the “whole volume is one long argument.… We ought to be extremely cautious in saying that any organ or instinct, or any whole structure, could not have arrived at its present state by many graduated steps.”

Ironically, the use of the popular Anti-Science labeling in politics should be applied to Charles Darwin−the founder of modern evolutionary thought.http://www.darwinthenandnow.com/2011/10/anti-science-irony/

If evolution is so scientific, factual and beyond all rational argument, then why do proponents of the Darwinian evolutionary theory systematically lie about their findings and defame other scientists with contrarian ideas like Intelligent Design, creationism and natural law, and in the name of "academic freedom" dominate the majority of academic journals and university professorships with a Stalinist grip? What of derivative theories of evolution like the Big Bang theory – like all matter and the living things in the universe, including mankind, came about 13.7 billion years ago from an explosion? I'm not a scientist, but I was taught in elementary school that explosions destroy things, not create them.

This hilarious nutter could use some high-school education. The Big Bang theory is not derivative of evolutionary theory, it stands on its own. Living things, mankind included, did not originate 13.7 billion years ago: the Earth formed much later (4.5 bya) and life came later still. The Big Bang was not an explosion. This guy denies not just evolution, he denies physics and astronomy, and presumably geology, too.

ba77, keep quoting Wing Nuts Daily. It's usually highly entertaining, though probably not in a way you intended.

Well in the quote you cited he himself says he is not a scientist, but from his righteously indignant tone he seems to obviously know full well the catastrophic impact the 'intellectual racism' that the pseudo-scientific theory of Darwinism had unleashed:

The undeniable fact of the matter, besides Darwinism having no demonstrable empirical basis in science, is that Darwinism has a very dark history of being the root cause of 'pseudo-scientific racism':

In fact the 'pseudo-scientific racism' Darwinism engendered was so insidious, and obvious, that Darwinism can be solidly traced back as a primary root cause for the NAZI holocaust:

From Darwin to Hitler - videohttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_5EwYpLD6A

The Dark Legacy Of Charles Darwin – 150 Years Later – videohttp://www.metacafe.com/watch/4060594

Charles Darwin, in his classic Origin of Species which still is venerated by the evolutionist elites today, stated that...‘At some future period … the civilized races of man will almost certainly exterminate and replace throughout the world the savage races. At the same time the anthropomorphous [Having or suggesting human form and appearance] apes … will no doubt be exterminated. The break will then be rendered wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilized state, as we may hope … the Caucasian, and some ape as low as a baboon, instead of as at present between the negro or Australian and the gorilla"

How Darwin's Theory Changed the WorldRejection of Judeo-Christian valuesExcerpt: Weikart explains how accepting Darwinist dogma shifted society’s thinking on human life: “Before Darwinism burst onto the scene in the mid-nineteenth century, the idea of the sanctity of human life was dominant in European thought and law (though, as with all ethical principles, not always followed in practice). Judeo-Christian ethics proscribed the killing of innocent human life, and the Christian churches explicitly forbade murder, infanticide, abortion, and even suicide.“The sanctity of human life became enshrined in classical liberal human rights ideology as ‘the right to life,’ which according to John Locke and the United States Declaration of Independence, was one of the supreme rights of every individual” (p. 75).Only in the late nineteenth and especially the early twentieth century did significant debate erupt over issues relating to the sanctity of human life, especially infanticide, euthanasia, abortion, and suicide. It was no mere coincidence that these contentious issues emerged at the same time that Darwinism was gaining in influence. Darwinism played an important role in this debate, for it altered many people’s conceptions of the importance and value of human life, as well as the significance of death” (ibid.).http://www.gnmagazine.org/issues/gn85/darwin-theory-changed-world.htm

Matthew 7:16-19You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.

Thorton perhaps you can comment on the findings instead of issuing a ad hominem?

Sure thing batspit77. A YEC made up a bunch of crap to support his YEC views, published them in a crap YEC 'science' journal. Another YEC with crap for brains swallowed it uncritically and C&Ped the crap here.

Thorton I do not hold a YEC position, but as I stated earlier, at least YEC's can justify a purpose for doing science:

"Atheists may do science, but they cannot justify what they do. When they assume the world is rational, approachable, and understandable, they plagiarize Judeo-Christian presuppositions about the nature of reality and the moral need to seek the truth. As an exercise, try generating a philosophy of science from hydrogen coming out of the big bang. It cannot be done. It’s impossible even in principle, because philosophy and science presuppose concepts that are not composed of particles and forces. They refer to ideas that must be true, universal, necessary and certain." Creation-Evolution Headlines http://creationsafaris.com/crev201102.htm#20110227a

Philosopher Sticks Up for GodExcerpt: Theism, with its vision of an orderly universe superintended by a God who created rational-minded creatures in his own image, “is vastly more hospitable to science than naturalism,” with its random process of natural selection, he (Plantinga) writes. “Indeed, it is theism, not naturalism, that deserves to be called ‘the scientific worldview.’”http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/14/books/alvin-plantingas-new-book-on-god-and-science.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

Modern science was conceived, and born, and flourished in the matrix of Christian theism. Only liberal doses of self-deception and double-think, I believe, will permit it to flourish in the context of Darwinian naturalism.~ Alvin Plantinga

Even Albert Einstein, although he was certainly not thought of as a particularly religious person, reflects how the Judeo-Christian worldview influenced his overall view of reality in this following quote;

CH: All of this results in a stubborn type of circular reasoning where evolution is presupposed, evidence is interpreted accordingly, and the results then service evolutionary apologetics as though they were obtained from objective science.

An example of circular reason you're probably intimately familiar with is the claim that the Bible is the word of God. And how do we know it's the word of God? Because the Bible says it's he word of God. This is circular reasoning.

On the other hand, the fusion of human chromosome 2 represents a necessary consequence of a specific conjectured theory.

In an earlier work, Popper discussed the historical sciences in which the scientific method of theoretical sciences is used:

"This view is perfectly compatible with the analysis of scientific method, and especially of causal explanation given in the preceding section. The situation is simply this: while the theoretical sciences are mainly interested in finding and testing universal laws, the historical sciences take all kinds of universal laws for granted and are mainly interested in finding and testing singular statements." [Popper, 1957, p. 143ff]

What Popper calls the historical sciences do not make predictions about long past unique events (postdictions), which obviously would not be testable. (Several recent authors—including Stephen Jay Gould in Discover, July 1982—make this mistake.) These sciences make hypotheses involving past events which must predict (that is, have logical consequences) for the present state of the system in question. Here the testing procedure takes for granted the general laws and theories and is testing the specific conditions (or initial conditions, as Popper usually calls them) that held for the system.

A scientist, on the basis of much comparative anatomy and physiology, might hypothesize that, in the distant past, mammals evolved from reptiles. This would have testable consequences for the present state of the system (earth's surface with the geological strata in it and the animal and plant species living on it) in the form of reptile-mammal transition fossils that should exist, in addition to other necessary features of the DNA, developmental systems, and so forth, of the present-day reptiles and mammals.

Given the number of chromosomes in human beings and great apes, the fusion of human chromosome 2 is a logical consequence of the state of the system. And we can test for these logical consequence today using empirical observations.

So, again, I'd suggest that you're claims of "lies" or "misdemeanors" is an argument from ignorance in that it assumes empirical observations can only play one role in science.

I'd also point out that this is a not a logical consequence of just any abstract common ancestry but our current, best theory of common ancestry, which includes the specific ancestors of both great apes and human beings.

In other words, the specific theory of common ancestry in question sticks it neck out a significant way, which makes it testable. In doing so it allows us to make progress, which is what modern day science is all about. This is in contrast to fixing on a position that somehow never becomes more accurate, nor expands it to account for more phenomena, etc.

Joe: How many mutations to get from a knuckle-walker to an upright biped?

Exactly what part of the above did you *not* understand? Specifically…

What Popper calls the historical sciences do not make predictions about long past unique events (postdictions), which obviously would not be testable.

Yet here you are demanding just that - a prediction regarding a long past unique event which is obviously not testable.

It's unclear how this is a reasonable request. Especially since I pointed out it's not something that science could do or claims to have done for reasons that are obvious.

Joe: IOW just how can a common ancestry between chimps and humans be tested?

Gee Joe. I just pointed out how the fusion of human chromosome 2 was just such a test, in detail, and why. It would be a logical consequence of our current, best theory of common ancestry, which includes the specific ancestors of both great apes and human beings.

Again, what part of the following do you not understand?

These sciences make hypotheses involving past events which must predict (that is, have logical consequences) for the present state of the system in question. Here the testing procedure takes for granted the general laws and theories and is testing the specific conditions (or initial conditions, as Popper usually calls them) that held for the system.

In other words, it's unclear how your question actually represents any sort of detailed criticism of my comment, either.

Any other takers? Surely, someone must have detailed criticism of the above comment, right?

Joe: The alleged fusion occurred in the human line. That means it has nothing to do with any alleged common ancestry with chimps.

Again, it's unclear how this represents any sort of detailed criticism of what I actually wrote.

For example, please enlighten us as which ID event in the distant past includes the fusion occurring within the line of human beings as necessary consequence for the current state of the system we observe today?

In the absence of such a necessary consequence of ID for the current state of the system, there is no way we can perform empirical tests today in an attempt to falsify it. As such, it fails the demarcation criteria for science.

"That's just what an abstract designer with no defined limitations must have wanted" has no necessary consequences. It's a bad explanation because it's shallow (not based on a long chain of independent theories) and easily varied.

Joe: You think the alleged fusion is evidence for common ancestry between chimps and humans. That is false as teh alleged fusion occurred in the human line. That means it has nothing to do with chimps.

It false? And how might you know this, Joe? Let me guess, a voice in a whirl wind as revealed to you the absolute truth?

Joe: And the ID event- reproductive isolation so that people like you can't breed with chimps.

What is it about the phrase "necessary consequence" that do you not understand?

And now we have the answer to Zimmer's question (which is essentially the same as the one I asked Cornelius, here, question 1).

As I predicted, Cornelius hasn't attempted an answer, and now we know why.

He picked up his assertion from the book, and the book provides no evidence that stands up to any scrutiny at all, not surprisingly, as apparently that portion was written by a lawyer, not a geneticist.

This has been an excellent demonstration of what can really only be deliberate dishonesty on behalf of the Discovery Institute, and I hope that readers of this blog who are skeptical of evolutionary theory (which is just fine - we should all be skeptical of theories, which scientists are by training, which is why we always test our hypotheses, and adjust our theories in the light of infirming data), to be even more skeptical of the motives and assertions of members of the Discovery Institute, who are all too ready to make unsupported assertions about scientific evidence, while simultaneously raising a smokescreen of unsupported and scurrilous attacks on the moral and intellectual integrity of decent scientists.

Here we have prima facie evidence of the moral and intellectual bankruptcy of the DI.

You didn't read the book so perhaps you should just calm down. Zimmer is now engaged in special pleading in order to make a case for the alleged fusion. And still no one can say whether or not it, and all that went with it, were random events.

And again your position doesn't have any testable hypotheses- you are lying again. And it doesn't have any scientific evidence either.

It is interesting when scanning through the evolusionists posts how they repeat every single fallacy pointed out by Hunter, and the funny thing is that they don't even realise that their posts only serves to proof the point.

This is true, Hannodb. We don't realise it. That's because it isn't actually true.

If you disagree, as you seem to, please give an example of a fallacy allegedly pointed out by Hunter that has allegedly been repeated in an "evolusionists" post, and explain why you think it is a fallacy.

"Everything evolved from nothing unless you can prove otherwise to the evolutionist’s satisfaction." -Cornelius

Evolutionists will not allow anything to provide that satisfaction. For example, showing irreducible complexity to the satisfaction of evolutionists doesn't appear to be possible because it can be dismissed with a vivid imagination. There is nothing that could ever be found or imagined in the universe that could be shown to be irreducibly complex to the evolutionists satisfaction. Like everything else with evolutionists their theory possesses no certain metric or standard.

If X, then evolution is true.

X is anything actually found or imagined.

One can literally plug in nearly anything they want in X and some kind of willy nilly story can be concocted to make it sound like evidence for evolution. Try it. It works every time, doesn't it?

Evolutionists will not allow anything to provide that satisfaction. For example, showing irreducible complexity to the satisfaction of evolutionists doesn't appear to be possible because it can be dismissed with a vivid imagination. There is nothing that could ever be found or imagined in the universe that could be shown to be irreducibly complex to the evolutionists satisfaction.

Bob, you're too ignorant to realize but it's already been shown that IC structures can arise through purely natural evolutionary means. Evolution can remove parts as well as add them, and there's nothing in ToE that says a structure can't change its function from its original function. Given that flexibility, evolution can and has produced lots of IC things.

One can literally plug in nearly anything they want in X and some kind of willy nilly story can be concocted to make it sound like evidence for evolution. Try it. It works every time, doesn't it?

Pity you're still to stupid to understand that not falsified doesn't mean not falsifiable.

Evolution is excellent at 'removing things' and we have much empirical evidence demonstrating this fact of degeneration, what we don't have is empirically proof of neo-Darwinian processes 'adding things'!

“The First Rule of Adaptive Evolution”: Break or blunt any functional coded element whose loss would yield a net fitness gain - Michael Behe - December 2010 Excerpt: In its most recent issue The Quarterly Review of Biology has published a review by myself of laboratory evolution experiments of microbes going back four decades.,,, The gist of the paper is that so far the overwhelming number of adaptive (that is, helpful) mutations seen in laboratory evolution experiments are either loss or modification of function. Of course we had already known that the great majority of mutations that have a visible effect on an organism are deleterious. Now, surprisingly, it seems that even the great majority of helpful mutations degrade the genome to a greater or lesser extent.,,, I dub it “The First Rule of Adaptive Evolution”: Break or blunt any functional coded element whose loss would yield a net fitness gain.(that is a net 'fitness gain' within a 'stressed' environment i.e. remove the stress from the environment and the parent strain is always more 'fit') http://behe.uncommondescent.com/2010/12/the-first-rule-of-adaptive-evolution/

Michael Behe talks about the preceding paper on this podcast:

Michael Behe: Challenging Darwin, One Peer-Reviewed Paper at a Time - December 2010http://intelligentdesign.podomatic.com/player/web/2010-12-23T11_53_46-08_00

Are You Looking for the Simplest and Clearest Argument for Intelligent Design? - Granville Sewell (2nd Law) - videohttp://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/02/looking_for_the056711.html

Where's the substantiating evidence for neo-Darwinism?https://docs.google.com/document/d/1q-PBeQELzT4pkgxB2ZOxGxwv6ynOixfzqzsFlCJ9jrw/edit

Allied with the Northern Christian gentlemen who ran the underground railroad and who died by the tens of thousands in the Civil war. Following in the footsteps of the Apostle Paul and the Christian statesmen, William Wilberforce of England who came before them.

The Southern Christian gentlemen of today are allied with their northern Christian gentlemen.

It's like Darwinism is the last visage of archaic science and superstition allowed in modern science.

Darwin popularized it during the time when modern biology was in its infancy, when wild stories of exotic places were popular, and Africa was mysterious and fantasy like. It was the time of the traveling carnval's with wild boys and when the mentally ill were misunderstood and treated like animals. Darwinism belongs to the same mindset that put the wild boy in a carnval. It is not on par with the modern science of Louis Pasteur, Guglielmo Marconi and Thomas Edison.

Scott, Darwin's demeaning of blacks and women was within his Descent of Man. It added a "scientific" leg of support to the already existent prejudice. It was part of the cloth of his scientific observations and research. You're in denial and making excuses.

To quote him, "At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilized races of man will almost certainly exterminate and replace the savage races throughout the world. At the same time the anthropomorphous apes... will no doubt be exterminated. The break between man and his nearest allies will then be wider, for it will intervene in a more civilised state, as we may hope, even than the Caucasian, and some ape as low as baboon, instead of as now between the negro or Australian and the gorilla."

"The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex IS A BOOK ON EVOLUTIONARY THEORY by English naturalist Charles Darwin, first published in 1871. It was Darwin's second book on evolutionary theory, following his 1859 work, On The Origin of Species. In The Descent of Man, Darwin applies evolutionary theory to human evolution, and details his theory of sexual selection. The book discusses many related issues, including evolutionary psychology, evolutionary ethics, differences between human races, differences between sexes, the dominant role of women in choosing mating partners, and the relevance of the evolutionary theory to society." - wiki

It's not irrelevant however much you wish it were.

My point was how poor his observational ability was and how the flawed framework of evolutionary theory has continued to spawn further jump to conclusions hoopla. It's amateurism at best and fraud at its worst.

Scott, Darwin's demeaning of blacks and women was within his Descent of Man. It added a "scientific" leg of support to the already existent prejudice. It was part of the cloth of his scientific observations and research. You're in denial and making excuses.

Explain for us again Bob: the 140+ year old personal views of a scientist that reflected the normal, accepted social mores of his time impact the 2012 scientific understanding of evolution exactly...how?

The Genetic Fallacy is the most general fallacy of irrelevancy involving the origins or history of an idea. It is fallacious to either endorse or condemn an idea based on its past—rather than on its present—merits or demerits, unless its past in some way affects its present value. For instance, the origin of evidence can be quite relevant to its evaluation, especially in historical investigations. The origin of testimony—whether first hand, hearsay, or rumor—carries weight in evaluating it.

In contrast, the value of many scientific ideas can be objectively evaluated by established techniques, so that the origin or history of the idea is irrelevant to its value. For example, the chemist Kekulé claimed to have discovered the ring structure of the benzene molecule during a dream of a snake biting its own tail. While this fact is psychologically interesting, it is neither evidence for nor against the hypothesis that benzene has a ring structure, which had to be tested for correctness.

So, the Genetic Fallacy is committed whenever an idea is evaluated based upon irrelevant history. To offer Kekulé's dream as evidence either for or against the benzene ring hypothesis would be to commit the Genetic Fallacy.

Does the merit of modern day evolutionary theory hinge on Darwin's testimony? No, it does not. Does the merit of modern day evolutionary theory hinge on Darwin's past observations? No, it does not. Does the merit of modern day evolutionary theory hinge on Darwin's political, social or theological views? No, it does not.

As such, you're objection is an example of the generic fallacy.

To use an example, Christians defended slavery by quoting scripture. Objecting to Christianity based on this alone would represent the Genetic fallacy. However, unlike science, Christians claim they have access to absolute moral truth though divine revelation. It's though this claim that we would have a legitimate objection to Christianity for having historically defended slavery though quoting scripture.

Scott, I read your post. Did you read mine? How is quoting from the Desent of Man irrelevant? It is Darwins idea itself within the very context of a scientific work that was under consideration. Perhaps you do not consider the Descent of Man a scientific work.

Secondly, I do understand that modern evolutionists reject such statements by Darwin in the Descent of Man.

My point was regarding a continual track record of amateurish and wrong claims by evolutionists for the last 150 years. It's not a 150 years of a careful and measured approach to the scientific method, but a powerful political machine of hype, fraud, and overzealous drive to cherry pick evidence. Darwin's statements within the Descent of Man are simply representative of the quality of observations and interpretation that evolutionists have been doing for 150 years. There is nothing in his work that would shine the light of truth on the mental status of blacks and women.

Regarding slavery. The teachings of scripture are often not followed by Christians. Too often the culture becomes more influential than the scripture. Those that were abolitionists saw scripture as teaching against slavery. One of the problems arises due to equvocation. A slavery in the Old Testament was not the same as American civil war slavery. The devil can and did quote scripture, but he twisted it. Don't you think the cultural pressure of the South caused people to rationalize slavery? Certainly. The same mental rationalization is going on with evolutionists. As a theory it hardly has a leg to stand on scientifically but it is rationalized. Southerners wrongly cloaked themselves in scripture. Evolutionists wrongly cloak themselves in science. Please read before responding. Please read before responding.

It's like Darwinism is the last visage of archaic science and superstition allowed in modern science.

Bob, I know this is hard for you to wrap your blubber-coated brain around, but the scientific understanding of evolutionary theory has come a long way in the 150+ years since On The Origin Of Species was published.

It's Cherry Picking Season - July 24, 2012Excerpt (Guy walks ino a bar and thinks he is a chimp): I try to outline all the functions of telomeric repeats, but my friend tells me that I am getting off the subject.He wants to me to focus on the ITSs, the tracks of the hexamer TTAGGG that reside within chromosome arms or around the centromere, not at the ends. I tell him that I was just coming to that topic. The story, you see, is that in the lineage leading up (or down, I forget which) to chimps and humans, a fusion of chromosome ends occurred -- two telomeres became stuck together, the DNA was stitched together, and now we find the remnants of this event on the inside of chromosomes. And to be fair, I concede at this point that the 2q13 ITS site shared by chimps and humans can be considered a synapomorphy, a five-dollar cladistic term meaning a genetic marker that the two species share. As this is said, it is apparent that the countenance of my acquaintance lightens a bit only to darken a second later. For I follow up by saying that of all the known ITSs, and there are many in the genomes of chimps and humans, as well as mice and rats and cows..., the 2q13 ITS is the only one that can be associated with an evolutionary breakpoint or fusion. The other ITSs, I hasten to add, do not square up with chromosomal breakpoints in primates (Farré M, Ponsà M, Bosch M. 2009, "Interstitial telomeric sequences (ITSs) are not located at the exact evolutionary breakpoints in primates," Cytogenetic and Genome Research 124(2): 128-131.). In brief, to hone in on the 2q13 ITS as being typical of what we see in the human and chimp genomes seems almost like cherry-picking data. Most are not DNA scars in the way they have been portrayed.http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/07/its_cherry_pick_1062491.html

The folks over at Panda's Thumb are having a huge laugh at the DI's Facebook page. Klingdorker decided to attack Carl Zimmer there over the DI's chromosome 2 stupidity, forgetting that most Facebook posters aren't IDiots.